


It's a thin line (to where you are)

by Umnonotoday



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And he doesn't even know, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Gilbert is just really whipped, Idiot's in love, Kinda sad in the middle, but a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umnonotoday/pseuds/Umnonotoday
Summary: Gilbert is sixteen years old and he hates Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.Fond memories of her smile are a distant thing. Hope for her favor is gone. All that remains is barbed words and mocking smiles devoid of any kindness. Competition without camaraderie has been his persistent reality for all the years he's known Anne. Some days, the vehemence of her anger still surprises him. Knocks the air out of his lungs and tilts his equilibrium until he is unsure of his footing. Stumbling through heated arguments and stinging retorts.----------He tries not to notice other things about her. Like the tilt of her head when she's focused on a problem. or the way she taps her fingers to a rhythm on her desk when she gets nervous. He especially doesn't take note of the different shades of red he can make her turn when he teases her, or the cute scrunch of her nose when Gilbert says something that she finds especially vexing. It's a million little things, the details he doesn't notice that are Anne in all her wild joyous glory.--------------------------------Or rather, it's always a long road with these two. No matter the time period.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 118





	It's a thin line (to where you are)

Gilbert is fourteen, and he likes Anne Shirley-Cuthbert. Like, a lot.

He's only met her that morning on the way to school, but he already knows it's true. Can feel it settling in his bones. Her competitiveness and her passion pulling him in like a moth to a flame. She isn't pretty like the other girls, all thin limbs and ungracefullness, but she is radiant. And Gilbert can't make himself look away.

Maybe it's something about her smile or the constellation of freckles that dance across her small nose. The wildflower tucked in behind her ear or her red hair that glows softly in the sunlight slanting through the window. Maybe it's the way she reads in class as though she can see the story unfolding in front of her clear as anything. Maybe it's the way her voice makes him see it too.

He really doesn't have a good reason to tease her.

It's just that, he's been trying to talk to her all day. And she's ignored his overtures of friendship. Blatantly. All he wants is for her to look at him with those blue eyes. To acknowledge him and say they can be friends. He's never wanted anything more in his whole life than he wants her attention that first day.

So he pulls her hair. He calls her Carrots.

And he regrets it the moment he's done it. Can tell from the look on her face and the sting on his cheek from her history textbook that what he's done is bad. Has hurt her in some insurmountable way that he never meant to. But it's too late.

Now her eyes glare daggers at him whenever they share a class, and her hands tremble with rage for days afterward, and no matter how many times he says that he's sorry, she declares them mortal enemies. Gilbert weathers her heated stare and her angry words that sting more than anyone else's ever have, and tells himself that it will get better.

*

Gilbert is sixteen years old and he hates Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.

Fond memories of her smile are a distant thing. Hope for her favor is gone. All that remains is barbed words and mocking smiles devoid of any kindness. Competition without camaraderie has been his persistent reality for all the years he's known Anne. Some days, the vehemence of her anger still surprises him. Knocks the air out of his lungs and tilts his equilibrium until he is unsure of his footing. Stumbling through heated arguments and stinging retorts.

He's starting to get sick of it. Tired in a way that sleep can't fix.

It's a battle every day, to pull himself out of bed and go to classes with her. To hear her disdainful voice dress him down over and over, and tell him he is something that he knows he isn't. She calls him arrogant, and hateful, and a million other unfair names that settle in his gut and make him nauseous. So he gives as good as he gets and tells himself that his anger towards her is not masking the hurt of never becoming what he knows they could have been.

There is no room for regret. It stings too much.

But as much as he tells himself that he doesn't care about her. Doesn't have anything but resentment and anger in his heart, he knows, deep down, that he is still in mourning for her. He feels it when he watches her share her first kisses with Royal Gardner in the hallway next to her locker which is, unfortunately, still four spaces down from his no matter how many times he's asked for a transfer. He feels it when he sees her and Diana giggle at the notes they pass in class or goof off in the lunchroom. He feels it when he sees her walk to school in the fall and spring, ignoring the fact that she has a car she could drive because she wants to soak in the glory of nature.

He tries not to notice other things about her. Like the tilt of her head when she's focused on a problem. or the way she taps her fingers to a rhythm on her desk when she gets nervous. He especially doesn't take note of the different shades of red he can make her turn when he teases her, or the cute scrunch of her nose when Gilbert says something that she finds especially vexing. It's a million little things, the details he doesn't notice that are Anne in all her wild joyous glory.

And yet with all her virtues, he finds that each day anger comes easier. Her kindness, available in spades for anyone else is not afforded to him. Her eyes, bluer than anything he's ever seen, only stare at him in annoyance and resentment. She's still radiant, but it's the kind of unforgiving light that burns your fingertips even as you grasp its edges. And Gilbert is tired of reaching for something he know's he can never have.

He thinks that he's read somewhere that it's apathy, not hatred, that is the opposite of love. It's tragically accurate. And in a way, it only makes Gilbert hate her all the more for it.

*

Gilbert is Seventeen, and he doesn't really think about Anne Shirley-Cuthbert all that much anymore. He has more important things to worry about.

It's the end of spring when Gilbert's world falls apart. He's preparing for his history final the day it happens. Sitting at the kitchen table and staring out the window thinking of how Anne's face is going to screw up and turn that pretty shade of red when he gets a better grade than her on this test.

He's jolted out of his thoughts by a crash on the stairs. Jumping from his spot and moving as fast as he can, he runs towards the noise. It's his Dad he finds, at the bottom of the steps. Face gray and taunt with pain, lungs hacking and heaving, gulping for air that just isn't coming.

The sun is setting as Gilbert drives him to the emergency room. His history test and Anne completely forgotten. It's long set as Gilbert sit's in the waiting room, anxiously tapping his foot against his chair and wishing with all his might that John Blythe will be okay. He's almost asleep in his chair, and the stars are fully shining above by the time Gilbert is called in to hear the diagnosis. His breath stuttering at the word cancer and his world tumbling down as he hears the terrible prognosis. They only have six months, if they're lucky.

Gilbert thinks of his mother, who died giving birth to him, and his siblings who didn't live long enough for him to know them, and is bitterly sure that he's never been all that lucky.

It's in that little waiting room that son and father lock eyes and come to an understanding. They can't stay in Avonlea and wait for this to happen. They have to get out. It doesn't take long to plan their course and pack their things, and Gilbert only stays long enough to finish his finals for Junior year. Head aching and pen quivering to the finish. He doesn't talk to anyone as he shoulders his way out of the school and down the steps.

He's gone before anyone realizes that he's leaving.

Their trip to Alberta is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because Gilbert and his dad have always been close, but this adventure that they share, this knowledge that time is running out, bonds them even closer. The curse is watching the cancer take further root in John's lungs. Watching it drain the life out of him moment by moment. Hearing him cough in the night and finding blood on the bathroom floor in the morning.

But even with all the pain, Gilbert commits every second he can to his memory. Seals it away and vows to never forget it. Even when his Dad becomes too weak to take any more trips and they come back to Avonlea in July. Even as the walks with him get fewer and farther between and the deep timbre of his voice weakens, Gilbert swears that he will remember it all.

Summer ends, and school starts and Gilbert doesn't go back. Doesn't have time for schoolyard insults and angry retorts and good grades. He spends his days filling out the paperwork for emancipation so that he won't go to foster care, wiping the sweat from his dad's face, and asking him if he's absolutely sure he doesn't want to try Chemotherapy.

John Blythe passes away the week before Thanksgiving, and for the second time that year, Gilbert is sure down to his bones that he has to get away. That he can't stay here with all the sympathetic looks and well wishes, and questions of his plans. It's stifling, it's suffocating. And he leaves. Packs his bags and signs up for the first humanitarian trip he can find. It's a seven-month trip to Peru, and Gilbert thinks it's what he needs.

He sees Anne the day before he leaves. He's standing at his father's grave when she comes, beautiful hair in loose curls and red nose sticking out of her blue wool scarf.

She's holding flowers, roses he thinks, in her gloved hands. And he can see the moment she realizes he's there. Sees her hesitate like she's going to turn around and walk away, and feels his heart pick up its pace when she instead squares her thin shoulders and marches up to stand next to him in the snow, a determined look in her eye as she bends over and places the roses at his Dad's grave.

He waits, for a while, for her to speak. But she doesn't. Just stares at the ground in front of them and stays silent. It's only when he's about to give up and turn away that he hears her whisper.

"I'm sorry"

She turns to him then, eyes brimming with tears, and tilts her gaze up to meet his.

"I'm sorry that this happened to you, I'm sorry that you lost him." She takes a deep breath, steadies herself. "And I know it's not important right now, and you probably don't want to hear it, but I'm sorry that I was so awful to you in school. I know you didn't deserve it."

He feels his own eyes fill with tears. Grief and pain for a father lost, and years of hurt and rejection all mixing together in that one moment.

He forgives her. Like he always knew that he would. And he feels a weight lift off his shoulders as they exchange information and promise to stay in touch while he's gone.

He sees her then, tongue sticking out as she types her number and email into his phone contact, and thinks that maybe he still has a little luck left.

*

Gilbert is eighteen, and Anne Shirley-Cuthbert is his best friend.

He arrives back from his trip to Peru in June with three things in tow. A new brother he loves more than life itself, a certainty that he is going to graduate high school and become a doctor, and an aching all-consuming need to see Anne. Bash supports the former and teases him ceaselessly about the latter. Gilbert grumbles and complains, but secretly he's glad for the teasing. Glad that there is still someone in his life who cares enough to tease him.

He and Anne meet up the same day he gets back. He knocks on her door and it flies open, hitting the wall with such force Gilbert is afraid it will break. And just like that, she's right in front of him. Blue eyes sparkling in excitement, and red hair falling out of its braid and making a halo around her grinning face.

He finds himself staring at her, drinking in her features. Because she's Anne, and she's here right in front of him, and she's just as beautiful as he remembers. He realizes at that moment that he's missed her even more terribly than he thought. Missed the way she challenges him and speaks her opinion with such conviction. Missed her drive and stubbornness. Her very essence is healing. And Gilbert just wants to bask in it.

It's late evening, and the light fades from the sky as they wander through town. Catching up in a way you can't do over email. It's easy, he thinks, to be with her like this. Talking and laughing, and finally knowing each other in a way he's wanted for years. They walk along Mainstreet and look into store windows, shoulders and elbows brushing as they talk.

There's still that same competitiveness and flare to their relationship, but now there are also 7 months of fond feelings and exchanged emails to go with it. Anne tells him all of the happenings in Avonlea he missed while he's been gone, her hands moving in large abrupt motions as she accentuates her stories, and in return, Gilbert regales her with his adventures doing humanitarian work, and meeting Bash. How traveling the world and really seeing the suffering of all those people helped him to decide to become a doctor.

They talk for hours. And it's not until they are about to say goodbye that Gilbert realizes they will be going back and doing senior year together. Since Anne was always a grade below Gilbert and he missed a year traveling. It's a giddy thought, that they could go back to school being friends. The fulfillment of all his fourteen-year-old wishes. He's pleased that Anne seems just as excited about the prospect.

Gilbert looks at Anne, her hair glinting from the light of the store windows, and her soul emitting that ethereal glow he remembers so well, and can't help but think this is the start of something.

*

Gilbert is Twenty, and he is completely, achingly in love with Anne Shirley-Cuthbert.

It's a kind of love that grew on him quietly. Labeling itself as friendship and squeezing into the cracks of his heart until there is nothing else left. It hits him, all at once, as they sit snuggled up together on the couch in Anne's apartment on a rare night free of work or school assignments, and watch Tangled for the hundredth time because it's always been Anne's favorite.

The air is filled with contented commentary and inside jokes; their conversations going on pause for every song so that Anne can hum along. Her voice is quiet and unsteady, but Gilbert has always thought it sounded sweet.

It isn't until they get to the boat scene, Flynn Ryder staring adoringly at Repunzel as she looks at the lights, that it hits Gilbert with all the force of a freight train. Because he knows that look on Flynn Ryder's face. Sees it every time he looks at pictures of him and Anne together. And yeah, maybe he wants to scoff and say it's ridiculous since this earth-shattering life-changing revelation is coming from an animated children's movie, but he can't.

Because it's true.

And suddenly his world is tilting in on its axis, his vision is tunneling. He's in love with Anne. Like, for real. Maybe has been for a long time. And what does this mean? What is he supposed to do with this? He's only been friends with Anne for half the time they've known each other. And chances are that if he were to confess his love for her she'd go running for the hills faster than he can blink.

He only realizes he's been holding his breath when Anne puts her hands on his chest and tells him to breathe. It's a gasp that comes in, and then another, and maybe he's breathing now but he's also still panicking. And, wow. Anne is right there. Her face is barely two inches from his own, and her hands are still on his chest making sure his lungs are taking in air. Which, honestly, is a little counterproductive right now since her closeness is in no way helping him calm down.

Her face is all concern. Eyebrows scrunched up and lips turned down in a little half frown. She looks like she wants to ask him what happened, but thankfully she refrains. Putting a little distance between them now that she thinks he's going to be okay.

They sit like that for a while, Gilbert and Anne, and say nothing. The silence comfortable and heavy in a way it only ever is with each other. Eventually, Anne's patience breaks. Tested to limit of endurance by worry and curiosity.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

It's said so quietly that Gilbert almost misses it. Drowning as he is in this new all-consuming revelation. But then he glances at Anne, sees the way her entire body is angled toward him. Ready, as always, to hear whatever it is that he needs to say, and feels his shoulders sag as the nerves drain out of him through the souls of his feet.

He can't keep this from her. It wouldn't be fair. And somehow Gilbert knows that even if this changes everything, even if Anne doesn't return his feelings, he still needs her to know. And whatever fallout comes, it will be worth being honest with her.

He takes a moment to think then, about exactly how he wants to say it.

"Do you know why I pulled your hair the day that we met?" He says in a serious voice, apropos of nothing. Hands twisted around themselves in his lap to keep his voice from shaking.

"I don't think you ever told me." She replies in that same quiet voice, confusion leaking in at the edges.

"I ran into you that first day, walking to school through the backfield instead of the road. And when I looked at your hair, I was sure I had never seen anything more beautiful. But then we went to class and you wouldn't even look at me, and I was desperate for your attention. I was fourteen, and dumb, and I wanted to be your friend so bad that I pulled your hair."

He pauses, waiting for her to interject with some teasing comment about how to properly get someone's attention, but she stays obligingly silent, eyes fixed on his face, and so he continues.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, we've both had our mistakes with communication in the past. And I don't want that to happen here because what I'm about to tell you is important." He shifts forward and grabs her hands in his. Noting how the way she curls her fingertips around his palms makes the butterflies in his stomach shift with happiness.

How did he not figure this out sooner?

"Anne," he says, looking right into her eyes as he speaks, "You are beautiful and kind, and passionate. You stand up for what you believe in and love unabashedly with your whole heart. You are sweet and good. And, I think I love you. I'm pretty sure that I'm in love with you. Now that I've figured it out, I just thought you should know. Though please believe that I won't push you if you don't feel the same."

He's close enough to her when he confesses to track the microexpressions that cross her face at his revelation. First, she blushes. A kind of red hue that travels all the way down her neck and over to the backs of her ears. And then, like the sun, a smile grows on her face. Awed, and shy, and as joyful as he's ever seen it. It takes over her expression, reaching up and crinkling the corners of her eyes in a way that makes him catch his breath.

"In love with me?" She says, that smile still putting dimples in her cheeks and her eyes beginning to dance with playfulness, "Is that what all the fuss was about?"

He's about to respond with an affronted exclamation, but suddenly she leans forward and closes the gap between them. Her lips meet his in a sudden movement, and all at once he's not really thinking of anything anymore because his senses are filled with Anne. Her feel, her smell, her taste. It's all right there. And it's overwhelming.

Eventually, they break apart. Foreheads pressed together as they suck in the breath they couldn't get while kissing. Gilbert holds absolutely still. Irrationally afraid that if he moves Anne will pull away and he'll discover that he was only dreaming.

It's a baseless fear. Because Anne moves her hand from where it's tangled in his hair and goes to cup his jaw. Her fingertips grazing his cheek softly and sending shivers down his spine.

"In case it wasn't clear," She says, leaning in again, "I'm thoroughly in love with you too."


End file.
